Post navigation

Odds & Ends

After finally adjusting to the idea of starting a biologic, I was making notes for my appointment with the doctor this week and realized that I haven’t shared much of this information with my husband. Usually I e-mail him a short update after I see a doctor, but try not to overwhelm him with too much detail. Apparently this is one of those times that he could have benefited from my research!

“I mentioned that the rheumy wants to start me on a new medication. That will probably happen next week. Here’s the brochure she gave me. Do you want to see it?”

He read the brochure, got that deer-in-the-headlights look, and said, “No! Absolutely not! Those side effects sound awful. URI? Does that mean pneumonia? …!”

URI is not pneumonia.

If I get sick, I have two different doctors I can contact for early treatment.

Doctors prescribe medicine when the probable benefits outweight the possible rare side effects.

If 17% of people have these side effects, then 83% of people do just fine!

Sometimes I think this disease is harder on him than it is on me.

***

Company came to visit – friends we haven’t seen in quite a while – and we had a taffy-pull. They’d never made candy before and had no idea it was so easy. My seven-year-old now – finally – understands what it means to eat so much candy that you make yourself sick.

***

The weather has warmed up, so my ducks think it’s spring. After months of getting only three or four eggs per week (which makes the eggs cost about $120 per dozen when I consider the cost of feed), they’ve finally started laying. Four eggs, four eggs, eight eggs… yesterday there were ten. I’m soon going to be getting more than two dozen eggs per day.

***

Just when I think I’m running out of things to write about… I still haven’t talked about some of the things I’d planned to write about my last two doctor’s appointments, and now I have another appt this week.

Comments are always welcome.

________
*Don’t bother to use lemon juice if you decide to try lemon taffy. The flavor is too subtle – I used about 3 tsp lemon extract to get a strong flavor, and it ended up tasting like commercial lemon drops.

Related

5 thoughts on “Odds & Ends”

As hard as things are on the patient, I sometimes think it is even harder on the person who is watching and loves that person. I know when my kids have anything done it is awful for me, so I could see how your husband would worry. It is hard to not have any control and just watch what happens and not be able to do anything.

My daughter always eats so much candy she pukes at Christmas and Easter. You would think since she’s almost 10 she would get it by now and slow down. I don’t know if it is the excitement of the holiday in combination with the candy or what but it never fails that she ends up sick and then fine after she stops eating. I am going to have to try making taffy because it sounds like a lot of fun!

Yeah, the warning labels on medications is always scary. I try to remind folks that most of these things don’t happen when the medicine is used properly. Every medicine is a risk, but often the risks are low enough to be worth it.

I often show patients who read side-effects Ibuprofen’s scary side effect list (http://www.medicinenet.com/ibuprofen/page2.htm). Almost everyone’s taken ibuprofen and they usually survived just fine. That helps people put it all in perspective.

Still, that is good of you husband to watch out for you, and care enough to read the thing.

@Tori: why can’t kids make that overeating-puking association? Did you try the taffy yet?

@Helen: I try to hide how I feel from my family, too. Nobody wants to hear how I’m really feeling 🙂 Yes, the eggs are similar, although there’s a slightly different texture if you like them fried. If you’re accustomed to store-bought eggs, you’ll notice a difference but most of it is due to freshness. Ducks are very easy to keep – just protect them from predators.